I can't believe how FUGLY my 24-inch pot turned out. It is NOTHING like what I had expected or hoped for, absolutely NOTHING. It took me a minute to recognize it as my own, and another minute to get the guts to own up to it being mine. I was so utterly disappointed in it.

Because it reminded me so much of a lippy, funkified mouth rearing up to eat something, I had originally wanted to do some really "unnatural" color, like a good solid bright green, or blue, or something. Something ghastly in its sheer saturation, something with the "POW" like the bright colors I just about always use in 2D stuff.

"No can do," was pretty much the response of the teacher, because we just didn't have those glazes anymore. The advanced students hadn't made glazes yet, and so everybody was left with more "organic" tones. "Okay," I thought, "I can cope." Let's adjust the plan! Let's see, I'll use this (rusty, flat red), and that (dark, earthy green with a bit of a shine) dripped on the inside ... I'll dip the outer lip in the red and rub a bit of it off, see what that does ... and then I'll take this white glaze and spray the entire outside, and it should look pretty cool!

WELL IT SURE DIDN'T COME OUT LIKE THAT

Pros: I like the contrast between dripped flat rust red/green glaze and the uncoated clay spots on the inside of the mouth. The natural clay tone is very fitting, very fall-like. (Though, I can imagine the color selection on somebody's couch. Or my mother's drapes.) I like the surface resulting from spanking the wet pot with a spoon.

Cons: NEVER USE THAT "WHITE" GLAZE AGAIN. The test tiles lied, I tell you, 'cause it definitely ISN'T white. It's more of a gray tone and it has these weird speckles in it that I totally wasn't expecting. It's like my pot came down with some sort of pox.

... okay, maybe I would be able to handle this unexpected (ugly) glaze color had I evenly coated the entire damn pot. Turns out the coat wasn't as consistently thick as I thought (though I DID test it, I swear), so turned out REALLY uneven. It's like my pot has these BROWN BRUISES. (Officer, I tell you these injuries had nothing to do with the spoon beating! I swear it!)

I cannot let this suckiness continue! Next semester, I resolve to PERFECT MY GLAZING SKILLS. I spend waaaaay too much time on these pots to let them turn out like shit. Construction isn't the problem (I take pride in my handbuilt pots being just about as smooth as something thrown on a wheel), it's the glazing. That's what I've gotta work on.

...

Work was pretty exciting today, mostly because I ran around campus most of the time as an official "photographer." I have realized that there is truly irony in my dislike of using the flash ... I say that flash is invasive, as a single flash gets everyone's resentful attention, and you wind up with a bunch of subsequent photos containing bleached out ": o" faces. But then I thought to myself that flash or no flash, my boy's shorts, my red t-shirt, my mechanical pencil necklace, and my hairdo with sparkly happy barrettes had in fact invaded a conference where most participants were attired in black suits and heels. I might as well have used a flash, 'cause I certainly wasn't looking subtle!

Being a photographer for the alumni and development department here poses an interesting conundrum. How do you continually reinvent your perception of a campus that you have been photographing for three years? How do you find new angles? Are there any left to find in a place where the buildings never change and the grass is usually kept mowed?

glazing was always my downfall in ceramics/pottery... I could never pick the colors that worked right... sometimes they worked in my favor... most of the time they didn't. I guess it's the luck of the draw, or really knowing your glazes.